Vicki Penwell

Vicki Penwell is an international humanitarian aid worker, licensed midwife and CPM, and midwife educator who has practiced since 1981, first in Alaska and then in Asia since 1990. Vicki and her extended family of four generations live and run a birth center in the Philippines, where they founded a non-profit charitable organization called Mercy In Action that trains midwives and establishes birth centers in poor countries. The Mercy In Action birth center in Olongapo, Philippines, is run by national midwives and funded by donations so that every delivery is free of charge to the woman and her family. Outcomes of more than 13,500 births have been excellent, using the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI) model of maternity care.

Penwell, who holds a Master’s Degree in Midwifery and a Master’s Degree in Intercultural Studies, has been teaching midwifery since 1981. She has designed curriculum for both USA and Developing World midwifery schools, and is a guest lecturer for the University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii. She has taught midwives and primary health workers in Nepal, Cambodia, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Mexico and Canada. In addition, Vicki leads two annual NARM Study Retreats each year, and offers Midwifery Skills Workshops on both sides of the world; her specialty is Global Midwifery training seminars that prepare midwives and other health workers to have the skill set necessary to save lives of mothers and babies in the poorer regions of the Developing World, where maternal and infant mortality is still shockingly high. Vicki and her husband, adult son Ian and daughter-in-law Rose live in the Philippines where they establish and oversee birth centers for the poor and train midwives in both the Philippines and USA. Vicki’s life-time work with Mercy In Action is featured in a chapter in Birth Models That Work, Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd, Jan Tritten, et al.; University of California Press (2009).